Despite the fact that my star goalie is in the hospital and might be out of the lineup for a while and my ex has sent me not one but three angry texts since I left the hospital, I’m grinning. I walked into that hospital with nothing more on my mind than getting my player treated. Now my mind is filled with thoughts of a very pretty, very charismatic nurse. It’s been a long time since my mind was on anything other than my work and my kid, but Sadie Braddock made one hell of an impression.

Sure, she was pretty, with her bright blue eyes, high cheekbones, and sexy curves not even her scrubs could hide, but her looks aren’t why I’m still thinking about her. It was her warm smile and the effortless way she balanced being a calm, professional nurse and a concerned sister and was witty and sassy the entire time.

I pull into the marina parking lot, and my smile disintegrates when I see my ex-wife’s car in one of the visitor slots. My chest instantly tightens and my jaw locks. I do not want to deal with her tonight. I jump out of my Range Rover and rush toward my houseboat. Even as I unlock the gate to the dock, I can see her silhouette standing on my front deck next to my front door.

“Lauren.” I say her name as passively as possible. “What are you doing here? It’s my night with Charlie.”

“If it’s your night, why aren’t you spending it with her?” Her face, which I used to think was pretty stunning, is twisted into a tight, angry snarl.

“I had a game and she didn’t want to come, so I had Hunter stay with her.” I’m completely pissed that I have to explain anything to her. I don’t report to her or need to tell her my plans when Charlie is with me. We have joint custody of our six-year-old daughter. Our agreement is simple, and we used to get along and work with each other, but now…the last few months, she’s been like this. And I am at the end of my fuse. But I know, as much as I want to tell her to fuck off, I have to work as hard as I can at keeping things between us civil for my daughter’s sake. God, it sucks, though.

“The game ended over two hours ago, Griffin,” she snaps. “I’m here because Charlie had a nightmare and wanted to talk to me. I asked why she wasn’t talking to you, and she said you weren’t home.”

“My goalie had to go to the hospital.” I move past her and punch in the code for the lock on the front door. “I’m here now, so you can go.”

“I’ll go with my child.”

The front door swings open, but I don’t step inside. I turn to face her again. “Your child?”

“If she’s yours, why are you not spending more time with her?”

“I had to work, Lauren,” I say in a low voice through gritted teeth.

“You’re home!” Hunter says from behind me, and I turn to see him walking toward me.

“You know he let me stand out here and knock for, like, ten minutes,” Lauren complains to me and glares over my shoulder at my younger brother. Hunter gives her a dazzling passive-aggressive smile.

“I don’t have to open the door. It’s Griff’s night. Being his lawyer and all, I am well aware of the custody agreement, but if you’re confused I can print you off another copy.” His smile widens, and it makes her scowl deepen.

“How’s the wife, Hunter? Did she smarten up and leave you yet?”

“Nah. She believes in love and commitment, unlike you,” he retorts. He winks at her. “Also most sane people consider me quite the catch.”

As much as I enjoy watching my kid brother take her down a peg, I’m worried Charlie might overhear, so I put an end to it. “It’s late. You should go home. Now.”

Lauren just crosses her arms and glares at me from the threshold of my front door. I cross my arms too. I’m not giving Charlie over early. We have a Sunday morning apple pancake thing that I am not giving up. Hunter stops being my snarky younger brother and goes back to being my counsel. “All hate aside, Lauren, you can’t legally just show up here and take Charlie on days when Griffin is legally entitled to her. You get her back at noon tomorrow, so you need to go. And if you don’t go, I can and will call the police, and we will end up back in court.”

She looks like she’s about to have steam whistle out of her ears. I can literally see her swallow down her rage. “You know what? I’ll go, but I’ll see you in court anyway. This isn’t working out for me.”

She turns and starts stomping down the dock.

I walk over and close the door behind her, locking it, and since it’s mostly just a glass pane, I also pull down the shade to block any last part of her retreating presence. “It’s not about you, you selfish psycho nightmare,” Hunter mutters and heaves out a sigh and rubs a hand over his face.

I lean on the peninsula part of the counter in the kitchen. “She’s just venting, right? She doesn’t want to drag this into court again.”

“She’d be an idiot if she did,” Hunter replies, walking past me and opening the fridge to grab two beers. He hands me one and twists the cap off his. “It’s a fair agreement, no one has violated it, and Charlie is happy. So a judge is going to be pissed she is wasting his time if she does.”

I try to relax a little and take a sip of the IPA. “I take it she’s okay? Why didn’t you call me?”

“Because it really wasn’t a big deal,” Hunter replies and drops into a chair at the small, round dining table that separates the kitchen from the living space. “She woke up a little freaked out about some dream and wanted to call her mom. I figured if I didn’t let her, it would be a bigger deal. I know you’re trying to keep things Zen in front of her. Plus I didn’t know Lauren would show up here in evil bitch mode.”

“I just wish I had been here so she couldn’t find another thing to blame me for.” I swallow down another gulp of beer and put the half-empty bottle on the counter. “Charlie’s asleep now?”

“Yeah, she had a few tears, called Lauren, calmed down, and was out like a light again,” Hunter explains, and before he can say more my phone dings.

I look down and see the number Dixie gave me and smile. I smile a lot, especially around my daughter and my family, but this one must look different, because as I glance at my brother he has an eyebrow raised. I turn my shoulder toward him so the nosy bastard can’t read what’s on the phone as I open the message.

I type back quickly.

“Why you smiling at your phone like it’s a Victoria’s Secret angel?”

I look up at Hunter and decide to share because he’s been bugging me lately that I need to “get back out there” when it comes to women. “Because she’s hotter than those angels. And kind of a real one. She’s a nurse.”

“Say what now?” Hunter looks intrigued and excited. “You take your goalie to the hospital and pick up a hot nurse? I like your style, big bro. I didn’t know you had it in you.”

“Neither did I anymore,” I admit sheepishly and walk around the counter to head to the living area. He follows, like a puppy in search of a treat. If he had a tail it would be wagging. “I didn’t exactly pick her up. But I am flirting, and she seems to be flirting back.”

As if to prove my point, my text alert goes off again. I look down and read the message twice. It’s that good.

Okay now I’m just plain grinning. Hunter is too. “Okay, flirty you is freaking me out. It’s so abnormal, you look almost…happy.”

“Shut up. I haven’t been that bad,” I mutter and shove my phone in my pants pocket as I shrug out of my suit jacket.

He laughs. “You totally have. But I get it. It’s been a rough couple of years.”

“It has.” Lauren and I have been divorced for two years, but to be honest it’s been rough since before the divorce. The year before we both admitted the marriage wasn’t working was pretty bad too. “But maybe things are changing. I mean…”

I pause. Hunter’s face instantly morphs into an expression of support. People never believe we’re brothers because we look really different. I have more of my mom’s Italian genes, and he has more of my dad’s Irish ones. My hair and eyes are dark and my skin is olive where Hunter’s is very pale. He has light hazel eyes and, when he had hair, it was red. He started going bald early so he just shaves his head now. He’s shorter, five foot ten compared to my six four. Our personalities are different too. I’m less goofy than he is, and he hates sports, which I love. But he gets me like no one else, so I’m not surprised when he knows why I’m hesitating.

“You want to ask her out?” he says, and I nod.

“I’m thinking about it. But is it appropriate?” I have to ask. “I mean not only is she my goalie’s nurse, she is also his girlfriend’s sister and related to a player on the team.”

Hunter looks shocked by that revelation, but it doesn’t faze him long. “I doubt it’s breaking any ethics code if you ask her out. Besides you’re the goalie coach, not like a real coach. No one cares what you do.” He shrugs.

I slowly raise my middle finger at him. He smiles back.

“She doesn’t work for the team, and you’re not her patient. But you’re four months into the season, and she’s probably been at games to see her brother play. Honestly, it sounds like you should have run into her a hell of a lot sooner.”

“I wish I had,” I respond.

He laughs and rubs his hands together like some kind of evil genius in the middle of plotting something. “Oh…I like this. I like this a lot. You are finally back in the land of the living.”

“Yeah, yeah.” I roll my eyes and give his shoulder a shove. “I need to go check on Charlie. You should head home to that lovely wife of yours.”

“Maybe one day I can say that to you,” he replies as he grabs his jacket off the hook by the front door. “I mean I have never been able to say it to you because when you were married to that witch Lauren I didn’t actually want to send you home to her.”

I chuckle. “Shut up. Say hi to Mia.”

He nods and heads out the door. I lock up, shut off all the lights on the main floor, and head upstairs. The houseboat isn’t big, but I love it. I’ve always loved the water—any water. I grew up on a lake in Minnesota. In the summer I would water-ski and fish, and in the winter I would play hockey. We took annual trips to North Carolina, where my maternal grandparents lived. My parents would spend every day golfing, but I spent every day at the ocean body surfing and skim boarding.

Lauren worries constantly my houseboat puts Charlie at risk of being in a tsunami. She grew up in Redondo Beach near LA but hates the ocean. It’s so ridiculous. The only reason she lives in the area is because when we divorced she wanted to be near her parents. Now, she lives high up the hill in Marin, as far from the ocean as she can get.

I roll my eyes just thinking about it as I climb the metal-and-wood staircase to the second floor. I turn left and peek into Charlie’s room. The space is a wash of orange, red, blue, and green color from her night light on her wooden night table, which is a globe etched with multicolored dinosaurs carved in the shape of a T. rex. She’s on her left side, legs tucked up and arms tugging the covers up over most of her face. All I can see is her forehead and her mop of wavy copper hair. It’s a sign she wasn’t totally over her nightmare when she fell back asleep. A hard knot of guilt forms in my gut. I wish I could be here for her every minute of the day and night. I honestly do, but I know that’s not healthy. And I’m not away a lot. I’ve denied myself any form of a life outside work and Charlie, because I don’t want to take away from the time I do have with her. I don’t regret it, but I didn’t realize how lonely I am until tonight. Until Sadie.

I take a step into the room, but my text alert dings and I freeze. Charlie doesn’t move, thankfully. I step back into the hall, pull my phone out of my suit pants pocket and bite back a smile at her number on my screen. I check the text.

I feel relief wash over me and start typing a response.

I wouldn’t let Eli on the ice for a week at least anyway. I only stopped playing a little over four years ago, so I still distinctly remember being pushed through a concussion, more than once, and how it did me no good. I vowed when I became a coach I wouldn’t do it to my players.

I chuckle. Funny, getting her as Eli’s nurse kind of feels like I won a lottery. I start to type back, my fingers moving quickly, trying to outrun the nervous tension spreading through my body. I can’t believe I’m about to do this…

I lean against the wall outside Charlie’s room and wait. Is this stupid? Is she really flirting with me? Am I flirting with her? Do I even still know how to do that? My phone beeps.

Here I go. Maybe dating is like riding a bike…even though it feels more like walking off a cliff.

Am I even free tomorrow afternoon? Should I have checked my calendar? Nah. I know I don’t have Charlie, and fuck anything else. For this woman, I’ll reschedule.

I scrub a hand over my face. It feels like the longest minute of my life, but that’s all it takes for her to respond.

My face explodes in a smile, and my chest releases a huge breath I didn’t realize I was holding. I type back a time and a place, hoping it works. Four p.m., Saint Frank Coffee on Polk. I have no idea where she lives, but even if it’s on the other side of San Francisco I will pick her up and drive her there. It’s that good.

I set my phone to silent and head back into Charlie’s room. Her little fists have released the viselike grip she was holding the blankets with, and she’s flopped over onto her back. I can see her whole little face now; she seems peaceful. I stop at the side of the bed, lean down and smooth back her hair. She doesn’t stir. Just in case she has another dream I leave the door wide open and leave mine at the other end of the short hall open too.

I put my phone on the dresser in my room and realize she responded.

I just lined up my first date since the divorce. I kind of wish Hunter were still here so I could high-five someone.